Mastering Mindset and Gratitude for Real Estate Success

You're listening to the John Kitchens podcast experience. This is your host John Kitchens

Get ready to gain clarity build confidence and then cover the framework to become the CEO of your Willis K. Business

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What's good fellas

One big fire under the turkey

Yeah

What's happening to giving boys I'd be thankful for both of you

Indeed, I am grateful for both of you as well

same and

you know

I was like man now nailed it man gratitude edition and I

Was talking about I think we had maybe we had go go on you know last week

Albie and when we were talking kind of kind of through gratitude and then I threw something else out there, but

Had a few people reach out

I made a post about from from gratitude. We've all known right, you know

Be mose would always hit us with you know, you know the struggle lands when gratitude begins and

Really focusing on some type of gratitude practice and

The post that I that I threw out there was along the lines of you know, we tend to default back to gratitude and struggle

Why can't we be more present with gratitude in

Times of abundance and times of of really the things that we have and man, I'll never forget and I've really been

Really good about this ever since doom and chaired

Kentucky Derby mastermind we were in Cincinnati. I think it was Cincinnati might have been the one of the first

times after Key West after we made the move to exp and

and

You know that room

Tammy pack, you know, Michelle say word go go like

The just the who's who was in that room, you know go just everybody, you know, because we went to the Kentucky Derby, you know right after and I remember

Might have been I think we had stuman in there right and he talked about his gratitude practice every morning in his notes

The first thing he doesn't into his you know when he pulls up his phone

Man, I adopted that thing immediately and gratitude and wins right how you how you start the day and how you book in the day and

Man, it's one of the the best things that that I've ever done is the moment I wake up

I just start typing or all voice what I'm grateful for

And it just what a way to kind of start the day puts things in the perspective, you know, where you wake up

You get to travel who you get to see, you know

Grateful for the obstacles in my path grateful for you know, you know, you guys grateful for my inner circle grateful for kids family

Health mindset, right just everything that kind of comes to mind and I'll never forget man, you know

He shared that that was like one of the best little nuggets from a gratitude perspective and a gratitude practice to be able to have

And it makes a world of difference in your mindset, especially starting the day

So do you keep a digital like journal of this?

Yeah, it's on my notes on my iPhone and some my notes and I just have a note

It's a gratitude and wins 2024. I have one from 23 from 22 21

And I just like November 26, 2024 grateful and then I'll just start you know

If everything that comes to mind like what are you kind of grateful for in the moment and it's just been really cool, man

You know you know

students full of nuggets and wisdom that that was that was one of the best little, you know, nuggets that I be able to pull from them

Yeah, I do remember now that you're saying that

And student have us a little app that he that he

He used to do it in he did I think he did create the app

G code

And so we had that

I think at the time when he shared he was using Evernote and then just Evernote got too slow

As I was just notes as easy just pop up notes and just just go at it, but he did have the G code app

You know to kind of work through

That but one of the G's obviously his gratitude. Right. Oh, I didn't know. Okay. Yeah. I mean

I never studied the G code. I saw him talk about it, but never really delve dove into it

It's really really good. I mean, you know Garrett Garrett wide has you know something, you know similar with warrior

You know faith freedom finance fitness

You know, so it's just just kind of the combination of the different equities. Yeah, but it's putting it into a process

It's like you know my one of my favorites is house right from the miracle morning

And his savers and you know part of that silence

Could also be gratitude could be prayer could be meditation could be mindfulness

But it's one of those things that you want to incorporate as a habit

And that's a really healthy habit

especially for us mentally and

You know, it's it's really

The first thing and we talk about it all the time right in in al we were we were talking with gogo right just the last week

You know the personal development side of things but but really the personal development around the mindset side of things

And I'm so grateful for for the work that we all did

Um, in that run, you know 12 13 14 15 time frame run that we all went through and

Doing the work man Carol Dewick, you know, it's biring Katie Marley Adams, you know

Who the mentors and coaches in our life at the time clay mask in our life just just the challenges on our on our mental being and inside of things and

You know have an access to being able to connect with his coach

Right you look back at those at that time. I mean

Wow, you know a decade ago that that you know and we damn sure put the work in like we all did and we challenged each other and it's deep

It's some heady stuff, but

You know to be able to sit here and kind of the mindset and and

I tell you what it does for me and I really been you know

Kind of talking with Leanne through a lot of this and in the visual is is that you've got to be the calm in the chaos

And you've got to be still and when you have a gratitude practice a mindfulness practice silence prayer when you have that

It allows you to be able to be centered and be still

And the visual think about that visual right? It's just like the chaos in the world is exploding around you

But you're dead still and nothing can mess with you

That's what it means to me when you talk about gratitude mindfulness silence prayer having that

Still set having that mindset and having that you know practice

You're able to just sit in it and it doesn't bother you

I love it. I've tried meditating so many times bro and I struck out and and but the the times that I

I've been successful

We're only when it was a gratitude based

um

Meditation

It's so much easier for me to just

kick into a relaxed mode takes away anxiety

uh stress

It's just almost magically just evaporates when when when the center is you know because I studied Buddhism and everything and they they

They what they kind of teach is to think about nothing you really shouldn't be having the thought enters in you just let it go back out the other side

Thought I struggled with that. Yeah

And what's funny is I you know I've ADHD and um and it's hard to focus on anything but

When you when I try to focus on nothing I can't focus on nothing

But I can focus on gratitude so much it's just so much easier and

Because it is a central force of you know central place of a piece

And and it can be the difference

I don't know if you told the story, but just in the last year I heard the story about the um, you know

The holocaust survivor who was was was was was literally in a imprisoned in this cage

with about three or four other women

And they were you know literally being treated like dogs

They literally weren't it was infested with the fleas

they weren't even allowed to like

Read their their scripture and stuff like that to hide that from the guards because they would get beaten again

And there was just all these things and when they asked her

20-30 years later, you know

What got you through it? She said it was it was gratitude and and she they said great

What were you grateful for and she said I was grateful for the fleas

Yeah

And they're like what do you mean you were grateful for the fleas?

John if you can tell the story better jump in it is

And my coach was the one that actually shared that story with me and that came from you. Okay. Okay. And he

Because that's just kind of where where the mindset side of things goes and

And in every moment you can find a piece of gratitude and it's just because you know you got to look for it and um

I saw the real the other day is funny right how the algorithms work right you start looking at things and talking about gratitude those things start showing up

Audissania

The UFC chain for whatever but he talked about his gratitude practice and at the end of the day, right? So that's what you know

Dan Sullivan talks about you know right down the at the end of the day the three things that you were most grateful for the day and so

Stylebender would was was doing that practice

But what he would do is that it forced him now he was looking throughout the day for three things that he could write in his journal at the end of the day

So he started it's it's it's the reticular activator. Yeah, right now. You're now looking for it

You right like like black G wagon, right like you might not see it

You might not think you have seen a G wagon for for years in your market

But all of a sudden now you see 23 black G wagons because now that's all you're thinking about

And it's the same thing right his reticular activator was fired for gratitude

So he would go with throughout the day and it just he said his life changed

Just because he was looking for for things to be grateful for so he could write it down in his journal at the end of the day

and

I'm with you bro man the gratitude practice is is probably one of the most powerful

Powerful you know habits that you can you can really develop because you just start to see things and that's what that's what you know

The story about

You know you can even be thankful for fleas you can even be grateful for that because that was the

Outdoor John like yeah, so so what she said was she said was that

Well, why and she said well because if it wasn't for the fleas

The guards would have came in they would have found our our scripture and they would have taken it away

And we would have never had that moment to where we were able to bond and

Share scripture and have that time that really got us through that period and and so she goes

If it wasn't for the fleas that would have never happened

But nobody would go in there the guards wouldn't go in there nothing

So they had that time they were able to to keep the scripture they were able to to to have that that time amongst themselves

To keep them you know one day at a time, you know during during that period of their life

Yeah, so powerful dude and so like my my follow-up question to that would be because this is what I'm asking did I love this podcast

I write a page of notes every time we do this podcast real like

You know selfishly. I'm looking like if it can help me then I figure that it can help someone else

But my next question to myself is is what today or my fleas that I should be grateful for right?

I mean thankfully. I don't have fleas running around this house, but you know, what are my fleas like when you burn the boats

What boats are you burning?

Yeah, and what you know, what what are you saying? What are you saying? No and no more to right but

What what what are you grateful for?

Are you grateful like the real when you go to the next level of gratitude?

It's like are you grateful for those boats you had to burn

You know what I mean you're you know what you said is he your particular activator's always looking if you you know in this and I'm doing it

I'm committed

I'm committed to because I already actually have the journal like I carried around me already

I just got to get into the habit of every morning

I'm not gonna go just get a cup of coffee or maybe I will get a cup of coffee. I'm gonna sit down

Hit that gratitude journal, but it's not always just gonna be the positive good things

Of course, we're always gonna be grateful for our children grateful for our spouse or significant other, you know

Or maybe it's our our parents or someone that we look up to in our life

Those are all positive things, but what about the ones that that fuck with you?

One of those things they're like man like

If you can figure out a way to be grateful for the flea

That's in their bite net your foot

What am I teaching what is it teaching me wow? What am I learning from this and her most

Her most he talks a lot about this too, right? It's like if if you were to give your kids certain traits that you would want them to have

And I've seen a lot of a lot of you know, you know, I want I want X so God gives me why and and you have to go through that to be able to get

That whatever it is and her most he talks about that too, right? So like if you want you know you you want strength

Well, what has to happen in order for that to be true? You want peace? What has to happen in order for that to be true?

And and so the struggle right because life is uphill and you're either growing or you're dying

and so

complacency and not

The sacrifice and the trade-off those things are never possible

and and so I think that's to your point is like what am I learning here, right?

So these are all great questions and I think this goes back to what you know, just

so freaking grateful all the work that we put in and

and just being able to

change

Changed the way we think and just ask better questions and and better mental models and

um

I think I told you all because I had about tell you man. I went back and I'm not done yet

But I went back and started rereading the the four agreements

um you

So good

So good and in that you know putting putting that thing into

into perspective and and where

You know not taking things personally never never assuming

And um, you know, well, I'm grateful. I didn't assume this today or right like you can you can kind of work through

Like you said those fleas

They're they're biting at us every day

Yeah, and the other thing since we brought

Stoomin up is the force of average which you know, is that that invisible force that

That pulls us back to mediocrity pulls us back from our

Our our version of our elite self that were

At least most of us are striving for on a daily basis and then we get dragged right back down

You know

There there's no success without the struggle a muscle can't be built without

That tension of tearing it down so it can build back up

And we just kind of forget about that sometimes, you know, it's not just about all the

You know the the fairy tale life that you know, we we all just you know

seem to have compared to other people in the world

um

We have to keep keep in mind that it's the struggles. It's the tough months in business. It's the

man

I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I'm thankful for oh 8

Oh 9 yeah, I'm literally lost everything and went deep into debt

But why why am I grateful for that? Because in 2010 two short years later through that pain

I met you guys and if I hadn't gone through that

I probably wouldn't it hit so low of a bottom where I felt like okay

All right timeout I can't do it no more, you know, I mean like I need help

And I may never reach that had I never

Hit that depth of a low and lost everything so it really is and I used to say it all the time

But now I don't know this just gave me a whole new perspective

I'm being thankful for oh 8 oh 9 we say well there's lessons learned, but we don't want to learn them again

But

being thankful for oh 8

Shit

I entered a decade to get to where I can be thankful for it

Right right

But like when you when you when you when you really for real get to it not just say it but like

When you feel it in your heart that you're thankful for the for you know

The recession that we went through oh 8 oh 9 where everybody lost their wealth and and everything or money

You can take on anything exactly

That's

You realize man if I can make it through that I can do whatever's in front of me like

Everything that you have to do gets so much easier when you've gone through something that hard and came out and survived it

I mean, it's you know that that is something to be grateful for no question

Yeah, that is man. It's it's

Things don't

Things that like cause anxiety and and so

You know part of that other conversation that that Matt was having kind of sharing with with the fleas

He also talked about state of flow

and where anxiety comes in and and

skills

Match is where flow happens. So you got the challenge

That is

Great

But you've got the skill set to match it that put you in a state of flow

Where you fall into a state of anxiety is that the challenge is greater than the skills you have to be able to overcome it

Yeah, that's where anxiety comes in so so that should be

A trigger that should be an awareness of okay. Why am I anxious about this?

Why am I concerned about this? What skills do I not have to be able to match this

That's the skills I need to go develop

That's who I need to associate with that's the who I need to make the higher suit

That's what I need to do. I need to match my skill to my challenge and now I'm back in a state of flow

the opposite is

When my skills are greater than the challenge I'm facing I get bored and you know

Idol time right is not a good thing and

What's the that nipsy quote?

lyric, you know on a mission, you know the worst enemy is idle time

And we find a lot of idle time when we've got skills, but we don't have the challenge to match it

And so you know kind of being grateful for that understanding moving into the new year

You got anybody listening. I would tell you that if you're bored, you need a bigger challenge

You need a bigger challenge and if you're anxious you need to focus on the skill set to be able to to match that

That's great. It's so good. Yeah

And we're not just talking about sales skills or or business strategy skills and

Things of that nature. We're talking about life skills

Skills and empathy being skilled a skilled listener

you know

Being skilled at becoming aware of a of a situation as it develops and

The two of you do an outstanding job of that I feel like I've always

You know kind of looked up to both of you guys as you know and and we all have our moments

But you know for the most part like that's something I know

You know, I have to have a better. It's a kidding the pause button, right? It's a skill

Yeah, and you guys have I you know I'm giving you props you guys got

You've gotten like

Kinder especially you I mean dude you you you're a different person, you know

I've seen you handle some stressful ass situations recently where I'm like that Jay

He'd he'd be throwing a boom box off the top floor of a whole

Better

He's calm as a cucumber. Damn, it might be the psychedelics

Those two help

So I was it

You know at Grand Cardone's Wealthcon last week, right?

You talk about grateful um and man, they're just you know billionaire speakers one after another after another after another

I want to share a couple a couple of nuggets that

The biggest takeaway from the whole event

Outside of the fact that everybody's bullish on bitcoin and and there's a lot of really interesting people in the room

They're bullish on bitcoin

And they're super bullish on multi-family

But this one guy that spoke Bob dug and he went from four billion net worth last year to 13 billion

In one year, so he had a really good year

Um, but he had he had a couple things that I thought you know, you know

He was just talking about his journey, you know, his journey right and going through it

It's like man, that's so true. It's so true. It's so true. It's so true

You know that you have you know, you said it earlier out. It's like you have to go through you know

The only way to success is through failure. That's the path or something. There is no there isn't a strange

You have to go through failure to get there

But he was talking about your your willingness to take on challenges getting on down and get back up

Um another thing

You know, he talked about was focusing on impact making a difference

But one of the things that I really liked was you know, he talked about wealth and you know

Like money doesn't buy you happiness. You have to be productive

Overcoming barriers and challenges

Knowing that good things are are coming and that good things are happening to you right now

And so like his mindset around all this stuff was really was really good another another

You know thing you said and I think this goes back to what you were saying earlier John is like you got to educate to activate

So like if you want to get activated

Get you know, get that education seek what it is that you don't that you don't know whatever's giving you that anxiety

If you educated activates you like once you know when you learn something like oh damn

I didn't know I could do that. That's amazing. That's a killer. That's a hack right and so like you have to you

You in order to get activated you have to learn something you got to keep moving towards what it is you're trying to solve

But I thought there was some really um some really great speakers that you know and

I'm doing some big things out there that that you know, it was great. I was grateful to be in the room

There's a guy want everybody to write this guy's name down because everybody needs to go do this

What was the what was the Duggan guy before you Bob Duggan Bob? Okay, I'm Duggan. Yeah great great great

Dude, this is great. You could just tell great human being

um

So this guy write this down Carlton Dennis K.A.R.L T.O.N

Dennis and so you might you know why probably two it's been almost two years now

Knowing that you know the the living on the island is you know at some point gonna come to an end

And I'm coming back to the states and I have to have a plan for you know number one for me was you know

What's my philosophy on how I'm investing money? You know, we make a lot of money. What's my philosophy?

So I started asking people that question. What's your philosophy? What's your philosophy?

Trying to learn you know, what what are what are people's philosophies on invest money?

And then you know coming back to the states primarily

I'm just want to make sure I pay the least amount of tax the you know the biggest expense every person has

Individually and as a business his taxes period. So you know

That's the you know the first place you know, let's try to it's just like looking at a brokerage

Where am I going to be able to keep the most money? Well the exp you get to get paid to be here

So it's the best brokerage to be at period

but um this Carlton Dennis guy

Is a tax strategist and this is something I realized in dealing with a lot of investors that are invested in some of these

These properties these multi-family deals that we're putting together

Most people have a CPA and so as I talked to someone about the opportunity the investment

Then they go to their CPA and you know, they'll tell them something that that generally isn't true or isn't helpful in and in terms of what they're making the investment

Most everyone has a CPA. They don't have a tax planner or a tax strategist. There's a big difference in the two and so

This guy Carlton Dennis with a K. He's on he's on YouTube you go to his YouTube channel. It's tax alchemy

Um, but you can set up a call with him and I did already did the calls the first thing I did then I sent it to my dad

I was like you need to do this it's always joke about you know my dad

I'm gonna inherit basically a bunch of damn tractors and fucking trailers and all this shit because he goes to his CPA

Where he's like oh you need to go buzz the board equipment and shit and I'm like that listen like there's got to be a better way

Whatever you're killing me with all this shit. I don't need it. We're having you don't need any more tractors and trailers. We're gonna have a big-ass auction as we're going to get out of 12 and out of the forefoot shop

Full of just shitty used ride off you know to ride off on his taxes, which is fine if you need that stuff

But if you don't need it, it's not it's not that's not a strategy

um, and so

So um, there was a couple things in there um, that was really really helpful the first one and I'm not to get into irisco

But it's called 469-9 and it's your ability to if you lease if you if you have an Airbnb that you rent for less than seven days to two people in a year

You can bundle everything and that allows you to become a real estate investor

A real estate full-time real estate professional per the IRS code and you can ride off

You know in any and every investment you make into multi-family

This is something that people make these investments and they don't qualify for the cost seg

Which in and years past if it would if you put a hundred grand into

Um, you know investment into multi-family you could ride off as much as 80% the first year

That's insane right like there's huge huge deduction

So you know, so this this guy that you when you have your call with them

They're gonna go through it, you know, you know all all the all your income all your investments everything that you're doing

And then he broke down

Basically into three you know your three buckets

Um, let me see if I've good enough. No. Oh wait. I did a call with him later

Let's see so

You're gonna want to hear this. This is good shit. This is gold right here

So basically you have your you know your business owner bucket with your you know

Your vehicle's write-offs expenses things you can write off within your business salary all that kind of stuff

And your retirement bucket 401k, you know any type of you know health insurance all these different things

You can use for for that bucket and then you know the last bucket is is is a real estate

Which they're they're they're big on investing in to real estate and multi-family even single-family and cost segregation and doing all that

We said anything you have left over rather than pay tax

There's there's multiple investments that they look at that you can invest in that are deductible

So you can invest in oil and gas and oil and gas investments you can write off 90% of the investment the first year

um

Another one is um you can invest in so there's some of this crazy

Gas stations if you invest in gas stations you can write

You know one one point six was you know

What did I write uh

1.6x right off

Is what I wrote on that another one is hot one and a half times what you what you invest

That's what I wrote down. I have to I would have to confirm with them on that

But gas they so they have relationships with all these different investment different companies that they work with in all these areas

So if you have you know if you're trying to get a deduction

But you want it you rather make an investment than just buy some shit

All of these were ways that they that they look at for for how you can do that

So they have another one that's Hollywood movies

um

And then you can invest in Hollywood movies believe it or not

I have no idea why that's tax deductible

But it is the heavy machinery one which I I just found I found out about that from John Womber

Yeah right before connect con where you can invest if you buy a million dollars worth of equipment that are that's in this pool

And then you uh you lease it so you put let's say you put you buy a million dollars with the equipment

You put 10% down so you put a hundred grand in you get to write off a million

And then the they lease that equipment out and you and it cash flows and then they guarantee to buy the equipment back at 75% of the value

So that's another another potential right off and um

Was there was one other one? Oh, I guess

Now then they had another one that was leasing business equipment

Um, and you can you can write off 10x what you put into that

So if you put $50,000 into leasing this business equipment

You can write you can write off 500,000 50,000 you can write off 500,000

So there these are all vehicles that are legal by the tax code

But this is a tax strategist that's helping you to look at here's your income

Here's all your expenses. Here's what you're probably going to end up paying a taxes

Let's have a strategy for how we're going to invest money and so that you don't have to pay as much in taxes

And that and you know you're talking get that getting down to 10% or single digit

Income tax bracket

This is not tax advice secret legal professional. We're called this guy Carl Dineson. He'll help you

But

So that was probably the highlight of the entire event was just you know

I don't think enough of us spend enough time

You know, we just you know we get the end of the year and we're you know, you know, you you know

Okay, what can I do? Well, it's a little bit late. So you know getting getting to with this guy and maybe not for this year

Maybe for this year if you're if you have the ability to do some of these things

But um certainly getting set up for next year was my biggest takeaway from that entire event

Um fan fantastic great great speaker um and just a great great overall

Strategy and it it is resonated with me because I'm you know

I talked to a lot of people that have money to invest

All of them are using CPAs that none of them had attacked strategist even some of the wealthiest people

I know so if you don't have a tax strategist

I don't know what the sky charges yet. I think I'll find out on my next call, but I promise you I'm paying it so

Start starts with you know, you got to start with you know generating an active income

You got to do something to make money get out their cell houses to whatever it takes to make as much money as you can

Then you got to learn how to not pay as much of it as possible legally and taxes and invest that safely

And you know over the years, you know, it's funny because I you know, I used to you know, I

You know, we John we flipped I mean houses you think we flipped

In our name

I don't know where that money is, but I don't think I I don't think I have

I don't think I

But I brought you the elements as well

You know, so we made a lot of money, but you know, I'll you look up and he's like well, you know

500,000 to GTAT that went to zero and you had you got all these different things that you've made you know

Poor decisions and investing hell. It's hard enough to make money. You can't afford to invest and lose it

So what are the safest ways for you to invest reduce your taxes and and build wealth and

And you know, we landed on multi-family is that main strategy?

But but having a tax strategist I think for everyone is by far

One of the things you can do that can you know, let allow you to keep the majority of money or keep

Because as you're kind of talking through there, you know, I a default back to

It's all about the team, right? So it's it's building the life team. Yep. That's an alignment

So we know what what's what's the goal, right? What's the vision? What's the goal?

What's kind of the model that we're going to operate within

What's our biggest problems? We're going to have the right strategy, right?

Right strategy bad strategy. We're solving the right problem

And then what's the team have to look like in order for us to execute the strategy within the current business structure model

That we're operating within the sort of the goal and the vision. It's an up and down ladder

But most people when you say team, they just think about the business. We've got to have the life

team and

The tax strategist has to be a part of your life team. Yep along with the CPA along with the book

Along with you know, head of marketing also your your fitness coach your spiritual advisor

You know your relationship dynamic, right? So you just you just start to look at the things that are important in your life

You got to have the right who and this is where I keep coming back to Jim Collins, right? It's the who

You hit me with that question the other day. They're like do I do the business model the strategy or is it the who I was like it's always the who

It's always the 100%

Nothing another little takeaway

So they handed these out how to get how to get super rich for for kids, which this one's rigs rigs and Kenley

So I've got I've got if y'all don't have

Y'all y'all's kids are old enough now. I might not be helpful. But for anybody listening as younger kids

There's a credit card company called green light

Super bad ass

So so I set up my kids with their own their own credit cards and I'm in control of you know either depositing money

Based on the chores that they have and things like that they get paid

I can pay them interest on the money that they leave in that account and save it or they can invest in into the stock market

So it ought they can choose what stocks they want to invest in and and I can tell them how much they have to invest or not

So I can kind of control what how much they're saving versus how much they're spending and so you know

I gave them this this book this book to read

Both both and I incentivized them by telling them I was gonna get rigs

You know, he filled out the whole he needed the whole thing man and Kenley's she hasn't given me her

She's done with it, but they did it. They did it all in one day

Which I was shocked by the way, but I pitted them against each other

I said whoever gets done first is gonna get 500 bucks, which is a lot

But I didn't think they were gonna do it

And so they both went to work trying to get done first and so um I gave them both 500 bucks

To set it up, but they got their own credit cards that you know they can control their their own investments

And they're starting to learn how to you can't you can't save money and and and become wealthy

But you can invest money and become wealthy and so teaching them these principles that they don't teach in school

I think is you know something that we want you know, I didn't I learned I

I've literally lost millions and millions and millions of dollars like if I I would I would

Hate to sit down and see you know, and I can think of three things that cost me 500 grand in the last you know in the last 10 years

So like how much how much you know as it cost to me by not having a good strategy around money

You can't afford to spend your whole life just to just to get money to lose it and or to not invest it

You know safely and lose it you know tax people

500k we spent to you know work with the what's the guy's name Joe Garza one of the top tax you know tax

You know attorneys in the state of Texas and we find out that IRS is you know or basically the FBI is

Great rating his office one afternoon. It was on the news and we're like fuck that can't be good

Right? So IRS we paid him 250 plus we had to pay all the back taxes because his thing wasn't legit

You know, so you know, there's you know all these things that you know

I'm super conservative now and I used to be super high risk because money has always kind of come somewhat easy

You know to make but you know now I'm like now what give me that safe

Where's that safety you know the safest way to invest and create well and

Yeah, and of course, I got a lot of high risk stuff too, but

But but yeah, anyway, so I think that's super important and so another great book 10 extra kids

I think that's it's not on Amazon. I think you have to go to his website to order that one

Green light green light is the credit card company. You can set up for your kids

It's really cool super efficient easy to use the kids have their own little credit debit cards that can use

On whatever they want to buy or whatever, but they're also, you know

Making choices on what stocks. They're gonna invest in stuff like that. That's super cool, man

You know, it's funny kind of kind of thinking through I don't know because I don't think I've shared this with you

I've shared it with Al I've shared on a couple other podcasts and stuff and and

You know just just reflecting as a coach

And you know just kind of a a thought exercise for for us right, you know October was 20 years for you and I and

You know as like you know if I was our coach and I'm coaching these two 27-year-old knuckleheads

What would I coach them on and you know, I keep coming back

You know, I run different scenarios different thought experiments different thought exercise, but I always keep coming back to this

Our business is a vehicle that's moving us to freedom

And what I would have beat us over the head with was listen

Y'all quit chasing status and focus on freedom

Here, let's get clear on what freedom means to the two of you and let's design and build the business in pursuit of freedom now

Grateful that we didn't do that because we wouldn't be sitting here today if that was the kids

So grateful that we had to go through that 20-year journey to get to this point

However, I like I love to share this story especially with with younger

I was I was on with gay dosh's crew last week and I share I shared the whole story this with them

and the problem that we were and it's just I think I think it's age maybe and maybe both of us just as competitive as we are

I think because we wanted to just beat the shit out of Pam and Barry

And and so whatever it took and it took sacrifice it took it took our health it took our relationships

It was just it was not good

And and it was chasing status and I think getting through, you know, that David's book and I remember you were on the flight

Leaving leaving the land from agent to CEO and you said hey, would you rebuild with

This with with beyond entrepreneurship 2.0 and my answer would have been yes until that David's book came out

And I think I honestly believe you can build an empire off of choose your enemies wisely just off of that book alone

I

In my soul. I believe you can build an empire just off of that book and

The framework that he talks about of going from survival to status to freedom to legacy

Has just really resonated with me and that's the dynamic that I would coached us differently on and I would have been

Really hard on us about

Dude that status get out of status get to freedom and then because once you get to freedom and this is where you guys are at right now

It's now we're focused on legacy and you know, just both of you guys are building, you know

The the kinder brand the stasic brand and and and really changing

Changing the kids. I mean, just think of you think about this like like like braiding in Carson

But now like what you're doing with with with with riggs and kimlie right like just changing the whole dynamic and the psychology of how they look and think about money

right and and so

Just the man. I can't explain that to enough people

Like

Don't be chasing number one in your market. Don't be chasing number one for your company

Like that's that'll come if it comes

But you need to be designing your vehicle and your life team that's going to get you to freedom and because once you're at freedom bro like

I know you know a lot of freedom is mindset

But also being able to have the financial means to do whatever you want whenever you want with whomever you want

You know as often as you want. Yeah, I mean

It's it's so funny because I think back to like you know when we were you know 27 28 and and you know

There was so much ahead of us, you know that that you know is like yeah, we'll get to that shit later

We're over here building something, you know like but you know and and you know to a certain degree

I think that you know we put in an inappropriate amount or maybe the appropriate amount of hours in

You know to get us there faster like but I think we just did it the hard way

Understanding you know, you know, we're not when I when I you anytime I'm listening to you know

I get pitched ideas all the time and you know, you know

There's always you know this

Little things gonna make money or you know, but I'm always trying to get down to like the the thing that I learned and looking at all the businesses that we've been in

is is you know

The time investment and the lifetime value of a customer because it's really easy to go

I'm going to go sell this technology thing for I mean that's how we started right we started selling

Over the web over the web where you know, we walk out on somebody's website remember when Mike sent that to me

I drove to Texas. That shit was so funny

But we're gonna sell you know $15, you know over the web

You know right and then then what have we learned we learned well the barrier to getting one of those videos

Was you had to go to a studio where somebody had video equipment?

That long ago was and you know get this video shot and take a couple hours

um

And so you can't you know you can't sell very many of those because of the barrier for someone to get it done was so high

And there's some you know most people didn't even know a video for back then

It's like all of these things that you learn along the way when I come back to like you know

The business model that makes the most sense is going to be the one where the customer pays you the longest right?

So you know, Carson was you know, he was you know funny story y'all

I don't even think y'all have heard the story so Carson text me the other day right he was working for me

You know, and you know, I fired him because I can't you know, he wasn't ready

So

What you know, but I said listen, but I don't care what to just fucking do something

You know go do something find something and get excited and go chase something like figure out what you wanted to be

You're not gonna know what you're gonna love

Anyways, he ends up landing on somehow or another gets invited to

um

It was Patrick bet david's company pH something so so whatever

Uh, I don't look yeah, PHP is that what is I think it is I think it might be yeah, it is

I think it is it's pH something. I think it's php

Yeah, yeah, php agency. So this is crazy story

So the and I said it to you out when we were on the call with them the other day. I think I mentioned it to you

But that that morning, you know

You know the night before he had sent me a text about php and then I got on with the guy

Um from from php that that again, this is Patrick bet's company that he had sold and they had a a tiered compensation plan similar to exp, right?

So

You know, he was all excited about it. He's wearing a suit tie every day's work until 10 11 12

I mean, he's learning right now like this is the best thing it could ever happen to you

But he's in it, you know, and he's you know, he's trying to make sales and you know trying to reach little tiers of

You know opportunity or whatever and they're this is the same kind of things that we plugged ourselves into and got coached and trained and you know

You know along along, you know our own paths, but um, he ends up, you know, now he's selling life insurance

Well, I love life insurance. I think it's great because you know why people don't fucking cancel it

Yeah, like anything that you can sell that people get paid for you know

The you get paid for a long period of time is a good business to be in and you know

We went from selling a lot of real estate and you know, we sell the stories like man. It's great

You know, we sold you know 50 you had I remember I don't remember where exactly when exactly it was

I remember where I was when I when we erased the board and it was like 55 closings

And it was like we had to start over again

And it was one of those months where it was a fucking ass weapon and it was just like damn

Then you gotta do this shit again like it started over the clock start every 30 days

And you know, there just had to be a better way. How do you get paid? You know

higher, you know higher per customer and then just one sale move on to the next one one sale move on to the next one

You know and and we evolved and we kept looking for a better way and like it

The bottom line is there's multiplication to it where you know

We recruit one agent and as long as I say with the company seven years we get paid for seven years with that customer

There's no coaching product no residual product no technology product very few that people will keep for seven years

It's just a lifetime value of a customer is better at EXP and so when you when you go through all of these things to you know

To get to a place where well, okay now there's multiplication

We got somebody who tells somebody who tells somebody who tells somebody that's not work. You're doing that's leverage

now I got all my time back and and the amount that I'm getting paid

per per person is the longest of anything that I've seen in my business and any of the businesses I've been a part of

You know the average agent stays five to seven years you you've got

Literally your time back and you've got the multiplication factor and you got the lifetime value of a customer

That's why this business bottle of EXP makes the most sense all these going out selling widgets this any other

That's great. You can go sell something for $69 a month or $50 a month

You might sell a whole bunch of them, but guess what in six months, you know

The churn starts coming in right you know, and now I lost 25 customers now. I got to sell 25 to stay where I was at

And that we experienced that in coaching was like residual income. This is the best thing we've ever done

Till you're two when we started having you know 10 people canceled now you had to sell 10 just to stay back

Where you were at and so you know, I'm grateful back to the whole point of this

Podcast today. I'm grateful for all those lessons along the way and if there was something

I would tell anybody to pay attention to it's it's looking at you know

Where you get leverage with your time and the lifetime value of a sale or a customer is the the the highest number

Or the longest period of time is where you're gonna find you know the the best business

That's that's my two cents

Oh, man

Well, um, we're gonna wrap up here and as we wrap up

I want to show one more thing. I'm great for four four

I think that when I was in my late 20s started getting to real estate

struggled for a while, but when I started seeing a little bit of success

So I would probably be mid 30s. I was like, you know what?

I want to go back to my high school and I want to talk to the

High school seniors and I want to speak to them about the things

That I've had to learn that nobody was talking about in high school

And I have not done that but I got invited by one of my high school

Alumni that I graduated with she's a teacher at a different school

That's worked like one suburb away from me over here. So at nine o'clock this morning. I went and spoke to a math class

And this is a vocational math class like these people are not going these kids are not going to college

You know, they did not have good grades like me, you know like

They were they're not college bound right like they're going into trades which I love because I connected with them

And they wanted me to go talk about why it's important to buy a house versus renting

And I kind of went into it, you know, um a bit of a different

Spin on it. Of course, I touched on why it's important. I look

I put a picture of my first house. I bought how much I paid for it

How much it was worth when we sold it just to give them real high-level visuals. I didn't get real deep in the weeds

But at the end of it I ended on on taking care and understanding your money

Understanding that leaving your money in a savings account is losing money

And when I said that to them they looked they looked cross-eyed at me and the teacher backed me up

He's like, you know, remember we talked about inflation class

I'm I'm saying all that to say this. I'm going back at two o'clock. So it's it's almost one. I'm going to go back and I'm going to do it again

But what I left them with at the end was is that freedom

They're never going to experience freedom if they don't learn how to take care of their money

I never learned how to take care of my money until way late in life

And I you know, and so we we kind of had some like because one of the lessons that was in buying a house is

Well, how do you save for money and how do you make sure your credit score stays okay?

So you could get a mortgage in this now

And so I ended it on a couple interesting things that had nothing to do with buying houses one was

If you hear nothing that I say today

Except one thing is just understand no matter how much money you make or how much little money you make

I said

I've been broke and I've been rich and I can tell you this I'm gonna choose rich every time from the movie right? Yeah

And the truth of it is is because I wasn't

Understanding money and it doesn't matter what you choose you could be a plumber

I said anyone in here looking to get into trades good because I just a friend of mine just sold his plumbing business for

$10 million a plumber

Everyone used to look down at plumbers. No, the plumbers are getting rich right now

I saw all their eyes now start to be like, oh, okay

The teacher didn't pull me in for that and I'll end with this the second thing that I I told him was I said

Raise the hands in here. You hang out with some losers. You can admit it

I do sometimes I hang out with some degenerates right and you know when I was your age

I'm not with a lot of them and they're my best friends. I love them sometimes you know today

I still love them

But I said it's who you surround yourself from this point forward

That's gonna that's gonna put you in a great position where you can be free one day or you're gonna be trapped

You have learned the money game and surround yourself with with people who are lifting you and up not dragging you back down

And that's how I left it. I know it's supposed to be about you know

Selling you know how to buy your first house and everything but these kids need to hear this

raw and real and I was just um like I was I was emotional walking out of that school because it was

I was just grateful that I was allowed to do be there and do that

Which is what I wish someone would have came into our our senior

Math class and smack me over the head with the two by four and like this is what you need to be focused on

You know, and those are the moments where I will listen when someone gets up into my head and my soul

You know, and you got to really talk to him, you know at the same level, so

Love

Love you guys

I have to thank you for giving everybody. Thanks for giving everybody

Thanks for tuning in if today's episode inspired you follow for more conversations like this and gain valuable insights

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